Huffington Ad Allegations Untrue, NEC Says : Politics: Charges the Irvine firm has received $100 million in U.S. funds and is being probed are false, the company says.

Executives at National Education Corp. on Friday dismissed as untrue allegations made earlier in the week in political ads that the company has benefited from its largest shareholder being married to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

The campaign advertisements that ran on radio and in newspapers were sponsored by Feinstein’s opponent, Rep. Mike Huffington (R-Santa Barbara). Feinstein, a Democrat, is married to San Francisco merchant banker Richard C. Blum, who holds 17.6% of NEC’s stock and serves on the company’s board of directors.

“I think (Huffington’s campaign) used sound bites to paint a picture that they wanted to paint,” NEC President Jerome Cwiertnia said Friday. “They didn’t talk to us about the facts. I don’t think they were interested in the facts.”

The advertisements alleged that NEC, which provides training and education services across the country, has received $100 million in federal funds since Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992. The ads also allege that the Irvine-based company is “under investigation” by the federal government.

Cwiertnia said that the federal investigation in question dated back to a 1988 incident at a single NEC location in Texas. “I know for a fact that the federal government was satisfied with what we did in response,” Cwiertnia said.

Cwiertnia dismissed Huffington’s claim that NEC has received more than $100 million in federal funds since Feinstein was elected. “That money goes to students directly,” he said. “Some of it goes to our schools (from students) but it also goes to UCI, UCLA and many other schools.”

NEC registered its objections with Huffington’s campaign through a letter, Cwiertnia said.

“I’m really not interested in getting into this political issue,” Cwiertnia said. “I’d be happy to talk about our business but I’m not going to get involved in a political commentary.”

This past summer, NEC said it would sell a troubled education division, lay off about 40 corporate headquarters employees in Irvine and take a $40-million loss on the transaction. The company said it would stop admitting new students at six nationwide locations and sell 27 remaining locations to an unidentified buyer.